One of the biggest complaints black people had with the original version of ‘Planet of the Apes’ was the fact that the intelligent leader apes were light while the peon monkeys were dark. This shit was a flagrant negative racial metaphor, and I’m pretty surprised that it didn’t cause a lot more controversy/riots than it actually did.
Figure 1: Apes have Wiggers, too
So when ‘Planet of the Apes’ was released again in 2001, my primary motivation was to see how they’d address this issue. For the first 30 minutes(?) or so as the plot developed, I was fairly satisfied. The peon soldier monkeys that were chasing the humans through the jungle weren’t all that dissimilar in appearance to the evil general monkey, and it looked like they were going to stay away from having apes that were inexplicably blond.
But…someone involved in the making of that movie just couldn’t help him/herself. I’m a fairly quiet guy in a movie theater, but when the humans were brought back to the ape town and they showed the ape denizens playing basketball and hanging out on the steps smoking shit, I couldn’t help but yell “OH, YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!” - which resulted (thankfully) in the entire theater exploding with laughter.
Figure 2: This would never ever happen
Everyone in the room knew what I was pissed about, so I know I’m not being paranoid when I say that the new Planet of the Apes is just as fuckedupdedly racist as the original (though at least this time it was kinda funny). Why couldn’t the goddamn apes be skateboarding or playing tag or street hockey? Why them niggaz gotta be chillin’ on the goddamn steps? It doesn’t even follow logically from the apes’ origins.
The original apes were on a spaceship full of white people. It would follow, then, that the apes would develop sports that mimicked what their ‘owners’ would play - and for white people that’d be soccer or hockey or poker or some shit. Basketball would be the last thing to develop, if at all. I know there’s a missing link to that argument, but fuck you.
Figure 3: The Real Dr. Zaius
Second of all, the original apes from the spaceship were intelligent as hell. They flew spaceships for Christ’s sake. Why, then, would the descendant monkeys have devolved into a bunch of lazy fucktards passing the day by sitting on the steps and getting high? If you wanna make the apes black, fine. But at least stereotype them positively and have them attending a fucking poetry slam or something! Sittin’ on the damn steps…fuck you.
Near the end of the movie, the girl ape kisses Mark Walberg on the lips. My white friend leans over and says to me “hey dude, I bet you’re getting a hard on.”
I hate everything.
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